Southland schools are struggling with new Novopay problems, prompting some to suggest it might finally be time to ditch the plagued system.

The Government has now pledged $43 million to fix Novopay glitches, which have been frequent since the payroll system was introduced in 2012.

Southland Primary Principals’ Association president Ben Witheford said that, after promising signs last year, pay periods this year had been fraught with new “time-wasting” problems.

One staff member had been paid for 80 hours’ work when she had worked only 55 hours, others had found their special allowances suddenly stopped, and wait times for the Novopay helpline, which had improved, were back to unacceptable levels, he said. Read more »

A group of rebel principals plotted to “quietly take over” an association representing 90 per cent of school boards in an effort to overwhelm the national standards debate, leaked emails suggest.

An email exchange shows principals involved in a boycott of the standards discussed “dealing with” the New Zealand School Trustees Association.

“The easiest way is for us to quietly take over regional organisations of NZSTA … Just imagine NZSTA run by principals!” an email written by Hora Hora School principal Pat Newman states.

Mr Newman is former president of the Principals’ Federation and the immediate past president of the Tai Tokerau Principals Association.

He is one of two Labour Party members vying for selection to stand as the Labour candidate in Whangarei next year.

His email was sent to, among others, Denise Torrey, president of the Canterbury Primary Principals Association; Frances Nelson, president of the national primary teachers’ union; Iain Taylor, president of the Auckland Primary Principals Association, and Perry Rush, Island Bay School principal.

Marlene Campbell, principal of Invercargill’s Salford School and a member of the Southland Primary Principals Association executive, which this week called Education Minister Anne Tolley “Minister Hitler”, was also a recipient. All have been vocal critics of the national standards.

Mr Taylor responded to Mr Newman’s August 20 email with: “Oh that the go!! Great thinking … loved ya email to her too … man she awful!!” Mr Taylor was referring to NZSTA president Lorraine Kerr, who has refused to criticise or fully endorse the standards.

The organisation they wanted to infiltrate and take over by stealth is the same organisation that reminded Borads of Trustees that they were now to pass any school funds on to the illegal boycott of National Standards. No wonder the Labour member activist Principals wanted to take it over.

Nearly a third of the schools that said they had no confidence in National Standards have told the Ministry of Education they do in fact plan to implement the controversial scheme.

A group called Boards Taking Action Coalition said last week that the trustees from 225 schools around the country had issued a vote of no confidence in National Standards. As a result those schools would refuse to set student achievements targets for next year until the system was reviewed.

The next day the ministry starting contacting all of the protesting schools’ boards of trustees to check the claim.

The Herald has learned 66 of the 225 coalition boards indicated their schools planned to implement the standards in full. A further 109 said they would take some form of action or were yet to decide if they would implement the standards in full. Fifty schools are yet to be contacted.

The ministry yesterday said it could not comment as it had not finished making all the calls.

So this means that the cabal of conspirators are in fact big fat liars. Worse thing is that these people are in charge of teaching our children.

I think it is high time that there was a general smacking around of the teacher and principal unions. They certainly shouldn’t be able to avail themselves of taxpayers funds to mount their protests.

While we are smacking about uppity teachers, i see that the Herald has also picked up that Marlene Campbell just can’t seem to say sorry like she means it. If there was any case for the sacking of a Principal it is her case, and I would put a commissioner into her school, along with Perry Rush’s and Pat Newman’s.

With all the money being spent by the NZ Principals Federation (the principals union) hiring expensive PR firms, setting up expensive websites and mounting the campaign and the all the media liasion you would like to know exactly where that money is coming from wouldn’t you.

Well thanks to The Whaleoil tipline we do now. It is coming from the taxpayer via the various Prinicpals Associations which are funded by the Boards of Trustees and ultimately the government.

I’m also informed that $60,000 was donated by the Auckland Primary Principals Association.

The NZPF NZPF claims individual members are funding this from their own pockets. These documents show otherwise.

The School Trustees Association has already sent a message to boards saying that schools should not be contributing to this. You might not be aware but as part of the collective agreement for Prinicpals, schools fund the principal’s membership of the NZPF and local Principals Associations.

These Principals Associations are essentially taking money from the schools, provided by the government and using it to hire expensive PR spin doctors and mount a campaign against a legal requirement.

When the NZPF say that they are funding their campaign out of their own pockets they are demonstrably lying. Parents should be demanding that their Boards prove that they are not funding this campaign and diverting key resources from their children into a union managed campaign against government policy.

I note too that there is a list of sponsors of the NZPF, ironically ranked by how much they have given, a standard in effect. These organisations can now safely be branded as supporting the illegal action to boycott National Standards and themselves should be boycotted by parents who think that the principals should stick to running schools instead of mounting political campaigns.

I wonder how much of the sponsors money has also been used to fund political action against legitimate government policy?